Good reasons to upgrade to Release 8.5.2

Andy Pedisich   August 26 2010 08:35:14 PM

I'm always trying to push forward.  I use everything in my bag of tricks to try to encourage clients to stay current.

In nearly every case I've seen, IT departments are very overwhelmed and understaffed.  While I encourage clients to throw a team member at the task of looking for new features and seeing how they would apply to the reality of business processes, I am also grimly aware that this is a difficult position to maintain.

That's why I like the way that IBM is handling release notes.  The latest release of IBM Lotus Notes Domino is a good example.  When you download the release notes (today, at least) you get an HTML file full of search links taking you back to the IBM Info center.  If there are additions or edits to the stuff that's there, you don't have to re-download the release notes.  They are theoretically kept fresh.  And this link serves you not only Release 8.5.1 factoids, but 8.5.2 niblets as well.

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/domhelp/v8r0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.notes85.help.doc/fram_what_new_85_r.html

Not everything new is better.  For example, I absolutely despise Office 2007.  To me, It seems to be a contrived set of changes with very little to offer me as a core word processing, spreadsheeting, presentation type person.  I have trouble finding features.  Not the new features.  I have trouble finding the stuff I use every stinking day doing my work.  That's totally unfair. Where the heck is paragraph formatting?  

Don't answer that!  It's a rhetorical question meant for amusement only.

However, when up against the wall, it's important to see new functionality in Notes in order to pass the information on.  For example, in 8.5.1, Notes users were given the ability to drag the margins of tables in a Notes document to resize them.  Did you know that?  It makes tables really easy to manage.  I bet there are a bunch of Administrative Assistants who would LOVE to be able to do that in Notes.

And how about that new business with changes to cluster failover?  I keep calling that new functionality "polite failover" to distinguish it from the "harsh failover" that used to be the worst part of preventing a service outage.

It's new in 8.5.2.  I'll be doing demos to stakeholders the first chance I get.  And I have already submitted a proposal for cluster implementation that is to be prefaced by an upgrade (of at least the two servers involved) to 8.5.2 to take advantage of this very feature.  The release notes and their links will give you this kind of information so you can disseminate it and socialize it.  

When it's properly socialized, good changes draw everyone forward.  They want the change.  You don't have to push as hard.  

You can stop dodging punches and the inevitable bruising of the daily grind and the keep your focus on the shiny things that make almost everybody happy.

-Andy

Comments

08:35:14 PM August 26 2010